It began with a pizza-dough round that had been stretched and shoveled into the restaurant's oven naked, so that it puffed up high and mighty with air.

Browned and crisp, this orb was then ripped and twisted so that it rose up on its plate like wings, each one draped with rosy sheaths of speck, the northern Italian air-dried ham. In the center sprawled a vivid heap of roasted red peppers, arugula and the eggplant relish known as caponata, all dressed in a not-too-sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

Consumed in bits and pieces - a crackling shard of pizza bread against satin-slick speck here, a jumpingly tart marinated mushroom cap against a ribbon of sweet, soft pepper there - this dramatic plate was one of the most engaging appetizers I've had in ages.

The surprises went on. There were slender twisty tubes of a handmade pasta called trofie, clad in a pesto sauce that had been pounded in a mortar with a pestle, so that the basil leaves survived in startlingly fresh, vegetal strands afloat in the olive-oil-and-pine-nut emulsion. There were wide flat ribbons of handmade pappardelle in a Bolognese gentled with a touch of cream.

Pounded medallions of veal showed up in a cloak of asparagus cream, its color the palest green of spring. Wild double lamb chops materialized pan-seared rare, their bones soaring high over a discreet pond of reduced pan juices, the only sauce needed.

"Those were the best lamb chops I've had in years," I managed to groan to the friends who had lured me to this meal, as we sucked down soused cherries that had been marinated with cinnamon sticks in a giant glass jar on the counter. We swigged tiny glasses of house-made limoncello and tossed our cherry pits into messy little piles.

All the while, I was wondering how I'd explain to readers that this feast had happened at the Bada Bing! Pizzeria in League City, an unlovely little hole in the wall I had zoomed past countless times as I traveled the Gulf Freeway between Houston and Galveston.

With a corny name like that and an eccentric mishmash of outdoor tables and chairs set up on the sidewalk, I had never once thought to venture in.

But my Bay-area friends were insistent. They had become regulars over the past few of the Bada Bing's five years of existence, and the owner had invited them to come in on Saturday afternoons when things weren't too busy, saying he'd cook for them off the menu. It had become their weekend ritual, and I could see why.

When I realized the chef-owner of this tiny fast-casual operation was Stefano Bertolotti, all became clear. Bertolotti has run several notable Italian fine-dining restaurants in the Houston area, starting with Bertolotti's in what's now considered Upper Kirby and then moving southeast to two different Babbo Bruno locations in and around Friendswood.

I always used to find things to like at his restaurants, and I was saddened to hear that Babbo Bruno had closed amid financial difficulties and legal woes some years back. It's a tribute to grit and fourth acts that Bertolotti and his wife have turned their extremely modest pizza joint into what has come to be (in my estimation, anyway) the best restaurant in League City.

Sure, the walls are daubed in clashy shades of yellow, purple and burgundy. Yes, the high chairs and bar stools have cheesy Bada Bing logos blazoned into their shiny wooden backs. No, there's no wine and beer license. (It's BYOB, which some will see as a virtue.)

There's only semi-service, so that you order at the register and wait for your food to be bussed out by the skeleton staff. Two big-screen TVs flicker at either end of the long, narrow room. The art runs to the kind of poster on which "The Sopranos" characters mingle with "The Godfather" characters, with Al Pacino in full "Scarface" mode parked, improbably, in the middle.

The laminated menu is just as crazy, in its way, as that poster. Not only does it weave in the name of every last "Sopranos" character in groan-worthy fashion (Dr. Melfi's capellini, anyone? How about Johnny Sack's Gnocchi al Pomodoro?), it's also dizzyingly large, with all sorts of unexpectedly fancy dishes listed alongside the bedrock pizzas and sandwiches. It's the sort of wide-ranging document that usually inspires me to think, "No way most of this can be good."

That's where Bada Bing surprises. Bertolotti and his longtime lieutenant, Stephan Diaz, a charming young chef from El Salvador, have that all-important knack of making things taste good. Even a warhorse like Pollo Piccata can be wonderfully satisfying here, the chicken breasts flattened out nicely, meticulously pan-seared and blessed with a lemony white-wine sauce sharpened with capers. Served with a nest of springy cappellini tossed with that same tart and briny sauce, it's a classic. And it costs $12.

I love the old-school Shrimp Francese here, given a very light battering and pan-fry before being tossed with a lively lemon-and-wine sauce. The fettucine Alfredo that comes with them is on the creamy side, but the noodles are house-made and pleasantly resilient.

Eggplant in its various iterations is a good bet because Bada Bing doesn't batter and fry this subtle, meaty vegetable into oblivion. Instead it gets grilled and marinara-sauced and baked with cheeses for a lighter effect that works well as a side, as eggplant parmigiana or in a sandwich. In fact, the only way I didn't like eggplant here was inside a calzone - and then only because the unseasoned grilled pieces didn't contrast well enough with the filling of stretchy mozzarella and mild ricotta cheeses.

But oh, that calzone itself! It puffed as high as the off-menu pizza bread in its passage through the oven, emerging as a huge, rampaging crescent with beautifully crimped edges. Torn apart and dipped into a side dish of bright marinara, it was splendid stuff.

So was a Mediterranean salad plate that, at $10 in a quantity sufficient for two people to share, puts the salads at many a Houston pizzeria or white tablecloth Italian to shame - both in terms of value and flavor. It's like the salad version of that amazing antipasto appetizer that turned my head on my first visit, with plenty of spongy-soft fresh mozzarella, roasted peppers, tart mushrooms and prosciutto to play with. Some grilled Italian bread comes with it, to increase the possibilities.

Ah, but what about the pizza that is Bada Bing's nominal excuse for being? I may be a Neapolitan-pizza snob at heart, but I really liked the pies here. The crust is crisp and light, with a bit of stretch to it, and the bottom bronzes enough that only the tip of a wedge dips when held aloft.

And in best Bertolotti fashion, the topping combinations can delight. A clam pizza with a sunny tomato base simply rocked with garlic and a few rogue streaks of pesto. The clams may have been canned, and applied sparingly, but boy, did they work in the context.

Another evening, I asked Bertolotti to surprise us with a pizza, thinking he'd just pick one of the tried-and-trues from his extensive list. Instead, he shaved some asparagus onto a white base of mozzarella and gorgonzola, then added ripe small grape tomatoes and sheets of prosciutto. That's typical of the way Bada Bing will work with you to customize your order. You can build your own pizzas, calzones and strombolis here (by the way, the rolled-up stromboli I saw being assembled and baked looked terrific); and they seem to go out of their way to give customers what they want.

So next time I'll know to get them to leave off the dreary canned black olives on the otherwise very respectable Italian deluxe sandwich on ciabatta bread, substituting the higher-quality whole dark olives from the Mediterranean salad instead; and I'll ask them to swap out the puzzling ranch dressing on the side for some of that excellent balsamic vinaigrette.

I've learned to order around the numerous cream-sauced pasta combo dishes that tend to be pleasant if unremarkable. I'm permanently leery of the Gamberoni a la Malavita, jumbo shrimp drizzled with a dark sweet-savory dressing that tilted too drastically toward the sweet. I'm resigned to encounter strangely dense, chewy edges in the gelato cones with which I sometimes depart. (The flavors are good, but the storage and holding situation clearly isn't optimal.)

I know, too, to skip the unusual, deconstructed Italian cream cake (which would have been great had it not been assembled with cake way past its prime) in favor of the surprisingly delicate tiramisu, one of those versions that reminds you of why this now-clichéed dessert took over the world in the first place.

Some of the more unusual dishes on the menu aren't always available. There has never been rapini to make the Stefanito pizza when I've visited; and a friend who was tempted by the Wild Alaskan Cod with charred leeks and squid-ink vinaigrette on a weekday evening went away unfulfilled. (We were told that kind of dish would only be available on a weekend.)

None of these blips and bumps makes me less charmed by this unlikely restaurant. If I lived nearby, I'd be there a couple of times a week, eating in at the counter - where I love to watch the pizza assembly and the sauté station - or taking food home, as many patrons seem to do.

Give Bada Bing a try the next time you pass FM 646 on the way to somewhere else. It may turn into a destination for you. You may even find yourself accumulating regulars' cred, so that you'll be invited back for one of those off-hours, off-menu meals my friends treasure every week. Like them, you could get lucky.